MUMBAI – Actor Varun Dhawan said that Hollywood should not be a benchmark for success in Bollywood, adding that the Indian film industry should preserve Indian culture, while speaking at the launch of the Filmfare cover featuring him on Monday.

“I don’t think it should be a benchmark; it’s wrong. We are Indians, we have our own culture, we have our own standard.” Varun said.

“We have our own style. Technology-wise and VFX-wise, they are quite ahead and we should get inspired. But I don’t think we need to ape them. We have our own storytelling styles and methods and where song and dance is concerned, that is a part of Indian culture, part of Indian movies and I believe that should stay,” the actor added.

At the launch of the Filmfare cover featuring him, Varun said, “I don’t think it should be a benchmark; it’s wrong. We are Indians, we have our own culture, we have our own standard. Obviously, there are so many things they do better than us, there are a lot of things that we do better than them as well.”

.About Indian stars doing blink-and-miss roles in Hollywood, Varun said, “I think if an actor is really big over here, somewhere we have a responsibility to our fans, so we should do films where we could impact that film more, and the role has more meat as a performer and I think Priyanka and Deepika are really big, actresses, brilliant actors and they are really making us proud.”

Actresses Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone have ventured into Hollywood and their films are scheduled to release soon while actors like Irrfan Khan and Om Puri among others have also appeared in numerous films, playing substantial roles.